[Click e-Stock] "NCSoft Faces Prolonged Gap Without Hit Titles"

Target Price Lowered from 200,000 Won to 180,000 Won

Daishin Securities has lowered its target price for NCSoft from 200,000 won to 180,000 won, citing difficulties in achieving sales growth in the first half of this year due to the underperformance of consecutive new mobile titles.

NCSoft’s fourth-quarter sales last year reached 409.4 billion won, down 6% year-on-year, and the company posted an operating loss of 129.5 billion won, returning to the red. Both revenue and operating profit fell short of market expectations.

The main reasons for the poor performance were identified as the lackluster success of new games such as TL (Throne and Liberty) Global and Journey of Monarch, both released in the fourth quarter of last year. Lee Jieun, a researcher at Daishin Securities, explained, “In the case of TL, the game initially outperformed expectations in the first two months after launch, but the early launch effect faded from December, and its sales ranking is expected to continue declining in the first quarter of this year. Journey of Monarch also raised expectations with 8 million pre-registrations, but its actual performance was disappointing.”

Existing games such as Lineage M and Lineage 2M also saw their average daily sales fall by 23% and 4%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter, negatively impacting overall results. While Lineage W experienced a rebound in quarterly sales due to its third anniversary update, its contribution to overall performance was minimal due to its small share. Lee added, “We expect topline growth to remain challenging in the first half of 2025 due to continued sales declines from existing games. Furthermore, the release schedules for major anticipated titles such as Taektan, Aion 2, and LLL have all been pushed back to the second half of the year, creating a temporary gap in new title momentum. Therefore, we recommend a conservative approach.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.